The bottom line: There are a whole lot of self-made people making a whole lot of money in the United States alone, not to mention the rest of the world. Making the top 1%, or $380,000 in income per year, is easier than being one of the 236,883 people earning $1,000,000 or more a year.
According to a YouGov survey from January 2022, U.S. Americans believe that ten percent of households in their country have an annual income of more than $1 million.
Making a million dollars a year or more puts you in the top 0.1% of income earners in the world. A top 1% income is over $500,000 today in America. With such an income, you should eventually have at least a top 1% net worth of over $11 million per person.
Millionaire Statistics by Age
The world's 100 richest individuals earned their first $1 million at age 37, on average. The average millionaire is 57 years old.
How much money do you need to be considered rich? According to Schwab's 2022 Modern Wealth Survey (opens in new tab), Americans believe it takes an average net worth of $2.2 million to qualify a person as being wealthy. (Net worth is the sum of your assets minus your liabilities.)
The minimum net worth of the top 1% is roughly $11.1 million. A person would need to earn an average of $823,763 per year in order to join the top 1%. The widening gaps in wealth and income stem from a variety of factors, including the wealthiest's increasing dominance of public and private equity, and tax breaks.
Despite only about 0.1% of Americans making over a million dollars a year, it sure seems like the number is much higher. If you want to get rich, you might as well focus on joining industries that pay very well. But there's more to just joining a well-paying industry to get you to a million dollar income.
In 2021, the median household income is roughly $68,000. An upper class income is usually considered at least 50% higher than the median household income. Therefore, an upper class income in America is $100,000 and higher.
From the top 5% to the top 1%
Salaries start to jump significantly the closer you get to the top 1%. You'll start to see dramatic shifts in the top 5%, where the EPI found the average earners significantly increased to $343,000 in 2020, up from $324,000 the year before.
Top 10% income
Landing in the top 10% is a fairly attainable goal for upwardly mobile Americans. A study by the Economic Policy Institute (EPI), found that the average earnings of those in the top 10% were roughly $173,000 in 2020.
The Power of Compounding
One of the reasons that the first $1 million is so hard is that it is such a large amount of money relative to where most people begin. To go from $500,000 in assets to $1 million requires a 100% return—a level of performance very hard to achieve in less than six years.
Across the entire country, that range is between $47,189 and $141,568, based on Census Bureau income data. But $150,000 is still a middle-class income by Pew's definition in nearly half of the country's 50 most-populated metropolitan areas, where incomes tend to be high.
At $200,000 a year, you are considered upper middle class in expensive coastal cities and rich in lower cost areas of the country. After $19,000 in retirement contributions to your 401(k), you are left with $181,000 in gross income, leaving you with roughly $126,700 in after tax income using a 30% effective tax rate.
Households with a net worth of $1 million or more may be classified as members of the upper class, depending on the definition of class used.
The average age of a first time millionaires is 37, it has been found. In data released by Betway Insider, the average age of a first time billionaire is also revealed: and is a little higher at 51. So, if you're not quite there yet, what can you do to make your first million?
Annual income often comes in rounded numbers, as seen in the spikes sticking out at each $10,000. More round numbers at the $150,000 and $200,000 marks. About 2% of employed people made $300,000 or more in total income.
$570,003 is the cutoff for a top 1% household income in the United States in 2022. For a single earner, the cutoff is $401,622.
Across the US, the average income for the top 2% of all earners is $206,000.
How to Make the Top 1% List. To be in the top 1%, you must have an annual wage of at least $823,763, according to the Economic Policy Institute, That excludes sources of unearned income like investment returns.
For the youngest generation, $428,474 is needed to classify yourself as rich. That's more than six times greater than the median personal income of $52,338, according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics. The expectations of the different age groups.
Australians are the wealthiest people in the world with a typical net worth of almost $US274,000 in 2021, just ahead of Belgium, New Zealand and Hong Kong.
Yes, for some people, $2 million should be more than enough to retire. For others, $2 million may not even scratch the surface. The answer depends on your personal situation and there are lot of challenges you'll face. As of 2023, it seems the number of obstacles to a successful retirement continues to grow.
The middle-income earners typically comprise couples with children living off one fulltime job and a part-time wage. The middle 20%, generates an average weekly income of $1,884 ($97,986 pa), the report stated.